I am confused especially after reading some of the responses concerning High Noon. It will always be a classic. Ask my 80 year old mother and 85 year old father who I inherited this love of film from. No it's not by far the greatest western ever made but some of the comments, I ask myself are we watching the same movie. Yes it has its flaws but this in no way takes away from the importance of this film.
This was a review I came upon:
"The more I think about classical westerns, the more I come to the strange conclusion that classical westerns actually weren't westerns at all. For most people, western is nothing more than simple action/adventure story set in the Old West. But the films that turned into classical westerns were anything but simple; even when they fulfilled the action/adventure criteria, they actually were multi-layered dramas, with complex characters, subplots and raised issues that could cause some serious head-scratching even for the causal viewers. Such films used mythical setting of Old West in order to ask some hard questions and discover unpleasant answers about dark sides of American history, as well as the state of human civilisation in general. One of such films was HIGH NOON, 1952 film directed by Fred Zinnemann. This film is often regarded as one of the best and most influential films of all time."
http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/220/22076If you are able please read the full review. Especially the last paragraph in terms of its flaws..and not to mention how good Gary Cooper was.......!!!!!!!!!!